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Jason Burnett
Inspiring
July 5, 2026
Question

Unable to edit expression on property after dragging a link

  • July 5, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 32 views

I’m new to expression controls in After Effects, so please be kind if I am missing something here.

I am trying to rotate a bezier triangle distributed around a circular path.

To do this, I set the copies property expression to a Slider Expression Control (with a bunch of math to make the slider go from 0 to 100% of the maximum number of triangles that can rotate around the circle.)

When I create a second repeater, I open the Transform Repeater Rotation control and click the spiral button to drag it to the previous Transform Repeater control Rotation value. (so they both rotate the same)

But now, I want to add a value to the control, so I should be able to expand the Rotation Control and see the expression under it. Clicking on the expression allows me to edit the expression. HOWEVER, I can only see half of the expression level under my rotation. It’s not clickable or accessible. All you can see are the tops of the word “Expression Control” because the line is ½ height or smaller. I have tried clicking on rotation and using the arrow keys to activate it. I’ve resized the UI, closed all the opened properties and returned back to it. No matter what I do, I can no longer access the Rotation Expression Controls. 

 

Am I doing something wrong here? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have come a long way with expression controls, and this is just stumping me. 

    2 replies

    Nishu Kushwaha
    Community Manager
    Community Manager
    July 6, 2026

    Hi Jason,

     

    Thanks for reaching out. It looks like a UI glitch to me. What are your system specifications and version of After Effects? Is it reproducible on all the projects? Also, does Rick’s suggestion help?

    Let us know.

     

    Thanks,

    Nishu 

    Community Expert
    July 6, 2026

    What version of AE are you using? Pressing the ‘uu’ (the u key twice) will reveal all modified properties on a layer. Pressing ‘ee’ will reveal all expressions, or just typing “rot” in the Timeline Search bar reveals all rotation properties, “pos” all position properties, or the first part of any property will reveal that property in the timeline for me.

     

    sskaz
    Inspiring
    July 8, 2026

    It seems like the saved height of the expression field is the issue. Revealing the expression fields won’t change the height. Definitely a bug because the height should never be this short. I can’t make it shorter than 1 line of text.

    I attached a screen recording (from AE v26.3.0) showing where you can drag to change the height of the expression text field. Hover your mouse over the bottom of the expression text field and it should change to a double-arrow, then drag downwards. The new height should be saved in the project until you click into the expression text field again, and then it will automatically grow/shrink to fit the height of the entire expression.

    If it auto-sizes to that small ½ height, well, then something else is bugging out.